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what's going on bethany church at home we're so excited to see you this morning come on let's worship together in this place yourself to us let us feel your power open our eyes to see heaven's the fullness of you is now your time open our eyes to see is come on our hearts are respected this morning are we worse come on we say this in jesus name hearts expecting we're welcoming in your prayers come breathe on us your spirit come fall on us fallen us the best over foreign thank you jesus i've searched the world he couldn't feel me man's empty praise and treasures of faith are never enough you came along put me back together now every desire is now satisfied here in your love oh there's nothing better than you there's nothing better than you oh there's nothing nothing is better than you no no well i'm not afraid friend there's is a place for your mercy and better grace you there's nothing better nothing is oh there's nothing better than you oh there's nothing better than you come on wherever you are i just want you to declare this as loud as you can come on singing with us here we go you turn shame into glory you're the only one who cares you're the only one who cares you turn only there's nothing better than you there's nothing better than you oh there's nothing nothing is highway you turned you're the only one who cares you're the only hello everyone hello church and everyone who's watching this we want to take a moment a quick moment to say thank you to everyone at church and to people who are not members of our congregation who are vision partners and who have been sending in their donations and giving to the church in this season you have been a blessing to us and what's more you have enabled us to be a blessing to others as well because of your giving in this season we've been able to reach members of our church who have been financially impacted by the kobe pandemic we've also been able to reach people in our community who are impacted as well and we thank god for you and we are grateful for you god bless you mightily don't slow down now keep doing what you do and god will remember you for good in jesus name amen good morning everyone thank you so much for joining us this morning god bless you all and if you're fellowshipping with us for the first time a special good morning to you and welcome we want you to know that you are welcome you are wanted and you are loved if you were invited by someone i would like you to extend that courtesy to someone else so reach out to family friends send them the link invite them to watch service in the next couple of minutes before we get into the word of god if you are if a member here at new song in the alexandria campus or in the online campus and you would like to invite friends and family to join service this morning please do that in the next couple of minutes before we get into the word of god before we pray and we're going to the word of god god bless you mightily our believers academy is currently on underway and it's been going great from all the feedback i have got and i want to encourage you if you want to register for the next session to go online to newssongva.org and then go to the school of ministry tab or the school of ministry page and click on the believer's academy registration form you fill out the registration form believers academy is a course it's a discipleship course that introduces you to the rudiments of the faith and it's it's a it's an open discussion course that allows you to ask your questions and our facilitators are very competent with hosting these conversations and discussions and drawing out truth from the word of god so you will surely be blessed and you will grow in your walk with god if you take this course so i encourage you of course to take the course we continue to fast and pray as a church and we meet daily to pray during the week mondays to fridays at seven o'clock to 7 30. and it's been going really well so i would like you to join us if you're a member here at new song or if you want to join us and you're not a member of new song you can always send an email to hello at new song v8.org to request the zoom link and we'll send you the zoom link you can join us in prayer every day of the week during the week mondays to fridays well let's bow our heads to pray and then we'll go into the word of god this morning father we thank you for gathering us together again we thank you father for what you are said to do in our midst we thank you father for what you've been doing already we give you praise we anticipate great things and we know that our expectation will not be disappointed as we go into your word this morning let your word go into us father let your word transform us from the inside out and father by the time we're coming out of service let us be a little more like you than we were coming in we give you praise and glory in jesus name we have prayed amen we have been talking in the theme of growing up growing up that's been our theme for the past couple of weeks and it's um it's a study in spiritual growth and maturity and will continue in line with that i thought to round up today but as i continued in prayer and meditating on this theme um i felt led to extend it a little bit further so we're probably going to till the end of february in this theme and of course i'm praying and trusting the holy spirit that the holy spirit will open up your understanding uh to to deeper uh things and that the holy spirit will do a work in each one of us and transform us from the inside out and we'll begin to grow spiritually more than we ever have before in our lives and so just to do a little recapitulation here we two weeks ago started talking about the need for growth we first of all at the very beginning define spiritual growth as our spiritual maturity as the degree to which a believer resembles christ in their character and we we two weeks ago started talking about the need for growth we talked about why we need to grow and i've covered about six points with regards to why we need to grow we're gonna go and talk about some more um of why we need to grow the need for growth so that's part three the need for growth part three we said we need to grow because well spiritual maturity impacts all three components of a person body soul and spirit spiritual majority impacts all three and all the realms that all these three aspects of our beings represent we said number two that stagnancy and retrogression is indicative of illness or death only the dead do not grow and and remain and remain stagnant or the ill there has to be some form of illness if you're not growing or if all growth has ceased and then thirdly we said that spiritual immaturity limits your access to true treasures just like if a an heir would have these stipulations on their inheritance and that they'll say let's say things like when when he or she is 18 years old he will have access to say 70 and when he or she is 21 or turns 21 he'll have access to 90 and then when he or she marries or graduates from college then they'll have access to 100 or whatever the stipulation may be in the same vein even though the word of god promises us that we have all things access is limited based on your maturity because god will not give you something that you haven't matured enough to handle we said number four spiritual majority renders you vulnerable just like a child would be vulnerable vulnerable to deception vulnerable to to attacks from the enemy vulnerable to being a casualty in warfare you are vulnerable the more you remain a child spiritually because we are born into adversity as believers and we have to grow up in order to be able to harness the weapons of our warfare and skillfully wield the weapons of our warfare number five recessive jury majority renders you a hazard so you might actually find that you are not only vulnerable but you you become a hazard to yourself you become a hazard to others and you become a hazard to pretty much anything that god might commit to your hands because why you are still a child you give a child something precious before long they will break it they'll they're going to they're going to wreck it you just know they're going to direct so you don't give them anything too precious you don't give them your your 3 000 macbook pro um or your really expensive phones you give them something that's inexpensive very rugged and wouldn't break easily because you know they're going to break the stuff and they're going to injure themselves with a shard so that's part of what it is so you want to be mature because you do not want to be hazard to yourself you don't want to be hazard to other people and then we said number six spiritual immaturity renders you a liability you become a liability the more you remain in immaturity now if a child is a child as long as a child needs to be a child then there's no problem no one complains about that but if a child continues to be a child longer than needs to be then then everyone is concerned and everyone um wanders and the liability continues to pile on top of one another so we want to have we want to become spiritually mature we don't want to re be stagnant or retrogress we want to grow up spiritually because we do not want to be a liability to others we don't want to be managed we don't want god to feel like he's making a loss on his investment in our lives because we remain immature today we're going to go further and we're going to talk about some four more reasons why we should desire growth and why we should strive for it in our lives as believers and so we're going to go into the into the scriptures reading again from the book of galatians chapter four verses one and two we'll start there and then we'll take it from there and go further galatians chapter four verses one and two i'll read from the new king james version of the bible and if you have another version of the bible you can read along in that version as well it says now i say that the air as long as he is a child does not differ at all from his slave though he is master of all but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father why must we grow apart from these six reasons i have already listed i'll give us four more reasons and the reason why is i'm really wetting our appetite and and i want to create a fire in us that desires a hunger and a thirst in us that desires to grow beyond where we currently are because if we do not have that desire then we can't even grow there has to be that hunger a thirst that degree of desperation and it's important for us to see what our estate is costing us what what being where we are is costing us currently so another reason why we must grow our must desire growth having talked about some of the negative reasons because we've said you know spiritual immaturity renders your liability it renders your hazard runners you're vulnerable it limits limits your access to the fullness of god's promises let's talk about some positive reasons spiritual maturity results in better representation the more mature you are spiritually the better you are able to represent god don't forget our running definition for spiritual maturity or spiritual growth as being the degree to which a believer resembles christ in his character if you would like to sort of i could normalize it or explain it in this way if you see a child i mean not many people are like me but for me most children i mean a child would have to be remarkably like their parents for me to recognize them as being like the momo like the dad when when children are born and their babies they just look like a baby to me some people can look and say oh he has his father's eyes or he looks like his mom i could never tell when i look at them they just look like a baby to me i can't tell who they look like i know many people have come to me and said are you trying to tell me when my children were younger that you can't see that this child resembles you i'm like i don't exactly stand gazing into the mirror every morning wandering and and studying every curve of my face no i honestly do not see it this child just looks like a child to me they look like themselves but as they ch the child begins to grow more and more you begin to see that this child actually resembles this parent or that parent or both you can see it better i've seen children or grown up children stand beside their mothers and they look just like their mothers their mother they look like their mother's twin you know girls standing beside their mother they just look like their mother they look like they could be sisters with their mother because the semblance is uncanny they just they look alike and it's all the more pronounced because now they're grown up i've seen of course also fathers and sons as the sun grows up more and more you begin to see that he resembles his father more and more and so representation is more possible or is more pronounced as there is maturity now let me let me draw that into our day-to-day the word of god says in the book of ecclesiastes chapter 10 from verse 5 to 7 ecclesiastes 10 5-7 says there is an evil which i have seen under the sun as an error which proceedeth from the ruler fully is set in great dignity and the rich sitting low place i have seen servants upon horses and princes walking as servants upon the earth now think about this the scripture we read earlier on said that a a child an heir as long as he remains a child is no different than a slave or a servant because he doesn't know his rights he doesn't know his his power he doesn't know his um what he wields he doesn't know any of that stuff he's not aware of self he'll roll around in the mud like every other commoner he will do everything that is a slave a child of a slave would do because he's just there he's just a little child but the moment he begins to grow and has cognizance of self then he begins to act more like a prince and not like a slave the word of god is saying here that very often you see and this is true and i will explain how it is very often you see believers they act like they're still slaves they act like you see you see princes walking on the ground like slaves and then you see slaves riding on horses and that is reality in the world we live today the one of the things that has really broken my heart about the church in the past um couple of years especially the church here in um in the west is just the massive misrepresentation of the lord the lord of the church is the lord jesus christ jesus is the head of the church he is the savior of the body he is the bridegroom of the church our representation should be of him everywhere we go that should be our primary focus is representing the kingdom from whence we come but i have seen tremendous misrepresentation everywhere you look it's everywhere you look it's it's on youtube i mean some people are so shameless they claim to be believers they would even implicate themselves by filming themselves and posting up this you know despicable behavior that is not becoming of believers or children of god or people who claim to represent christ and they will post it up and they're proud of it why because they're children they have no dignity they have no sense of self they do not understand who they are they do not understand what god has where god has placed them they do not understand what they represent what they represent and the kingdom from whence they come it is its evidence you don't have to look too far you can you just go on youtube right now as you are and you can see all kinds and all manner of christian christian behavior it is ridiculous it is shameful sometimes you watch them you just want to cover your face and you want to go to one corner and go cry because they do obviously do not represent the christ that they claim to follow why is that the case it's because of a lack of maturity because when there is maturity within the spiritual maturity there will be better representation not many wealthy or successful people will put their seven-year-old child to represent them in a board meeting because that child is not capable one of comprehending what's going on and two of properly representing their father who's a business tycoon who is a brilliant businessman or a really successful person the child might have some semblance okay you might see some some some you know physical semblance of the father in the child but the child is is in new way capable of representing his father in that capacity and it's sad to say that many believers today are uncapable i'm sorry they're incapable of representing the father in any situation that he wants to be represented because they're still children in fact you go to the to the grocery store with your child and you might be some really high looked up to person in society and if you're not careful then your child likes something and you don't get it for them and you get to the deal and you're about to check out your child to begin to throw a tantrum and misrepresent you you might be a little bit embarrassed why because that is still a child you don't expect that from a teenager you don't expect that from of course a grown child someone who's 21 or 25 who's walking beside your store acting weird but when you look you look out today you don't have to survey very long before you find christians acting in the most untoward and shameful ways possible and they're proud of it why because they're nothing but children look at what the word of god says here ii corinthians 3 18 2 corinthians 3 18 the bible says that we all with open face beholding the glory of god as in a glass beholding glory of god are transformed into that same image from glory to glory the point here is the word of god is saying that when you behold god's glory when you spend time with god day by day you are transformed into his image more and more every day so the question comes what if you haven't spent enough time with god what if you haven't you haven't graduated to the point where you're actually visibly a child of god where it's clear that this is this person in your character in your in your in your demeanor in your disposition is a child of god then you're still in the in the phases of immaturity and you're not able to represent the father proper you're not visibly identifiable as a child of god you don't again you know the examples are preponder there's a preponderance of examples around us with regards to this you know i especially this past year 2020 really opened our eyes to see our areas of of deficiency in the church we see we've seen when people were put under pressure which tends to happen when people are pressurized whatever is inside comes out and you know in the initial sense i was very concerned um you would find christians who campaigned viciously against wearing masks and they had all manner of excuses and scriptures to back up their campaign to say well you know we're healed in christ jesus we just have to believe we don't believe in living in fear etc etc whereas at the bottom of it is just a spirit of rebellion because these are people who haven't practiced being obedient i mean what is wearing a mask to being a child of god where you have to be obedient every single day and god will ask you to do really difficult things and you will do them if if that had been your practice then wearing a mask is absolutely no problem whatsoever but because you practice lawlessness you are you're asked to do something so little for the purpose of benefiting another and you fail to do it and you even come to the point of of supporting it with the word of god how is that representing christ that is utterly a failure on our part to raise disciples who are mature we saw that we saw that everywhere we went i mean you would see all manner of horror clips on youtube of christians spitting at people of christians taunting other people and they would the most heartbreaking part would be that they would mention the name of christ in the midst of all of this they will bring god into it how embarrassing is that when they ought to go to a corner and cover their faces and and be completely and utterly contrite they would be totally confident and proud in this acting out as a child why because a child has no shame a child has no dignity a child is just a child they would solve themselves and continue to play around they will they will you know you'll see all all manner of snot on their face and they're not too ashamed about it because they're still children so spiritual maturity it results in better representation and better representation means that wherever you are you're able to present a likeness of god's character you're able to present the likeness of god's image praise god for that we're going to move on to the next point but i want us to i don't want us to just jump into the next point without thoroughly considering this so when we're done with the teaching i want you to take some time to meditate on the things you've heard read the scriptures uh scrutinize yourself the word of god encourages us and calls on us to examine ourselves make sure you do that so that this doesn't go right over your head so that's number seven spiritual majority results in better representations number 8 spiritual maturity distinguishes the mature it distinguishes you now again back to the matter of social awareness and the mat all manner of social transgressions that have happened in the past year it's sad to say but christians have become distinguishable not positively but negatively whereas when i say that spiritual majority distinguishes the mature it means that it causes you to be outstanding in such a way that it is impossible to ignore how like christ you are it is just impossible in the sense that the word of god said to the word of god jesus speaking to his disciples says accept your righteousness exceeds that of the of the pharisees and sadducees you you shall inherit enter the kingdom of god what he was saying was like if everyone's righteousness is on this level yours should be to the nth degree it should be so much higher that when people look at your life they just wonder they just wonder how you could be the way you are and they might hate you but they cannot deny the fact that you are blameless the word of god says in book concerning daniel in the book of daniel when they wanted to persecute daniel for some cause they could find absolutely nothing to persecute him on they hated him they were envious of him they hated his gods but they could not deny the fact that he was blameless that was even their own testimony concerning him that he was blameless they could find nothing concerning him but we can can the same testimony be said about us the church of today i don't think so and again this is mostly because we are not we we do not invest in spiritual maturity or spiritual growth we do not grow ourselves up to the point where we are distinguished in our majority second corinthians 6 17 2 corinthians 6 17 says therefore come out from among them and be ye separate says the lord that come out from among them and be separate does not mean be weird okay because we invest a lot in being weird we just want to be completely deviant from culture but that's not what god is saying god is saying that when we are when we begin to attain maturity and begin to rise in maturity people will see us and there will be absolutely no doubt that we are we are operating on a different frequency there will be no doubt not in a negative way but in a positive way it will be something to be desired in fact isaiah chapter 60 verses 1 to 3 isaiah 61-3 the word of god says arise shine for your light has come and the glory of the lord is risen upon you it says darkness shall cover the earth gross darkness the people but the lord will arise over you and his glory will be seen in you it says that gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising so if we do what we're supposed to do right people will look at us and they will be drawn to us they'll be drawn to the light of god that is in us but when we we invest in and let me explain something to us because we might not understand that spiritual maturity means dying to self dying to self means there are three aspects that will be affected almost immediately as you begin to experience spiritual maturity as you begin to grow spiritually i will i feel and i want what you feel doesn't rule you anymore your emotions you're not ruled by your emotions your emotions are subdued by the word of god and by what god requires you're not you're not led by your emotions you're not led by your own will anymore your will is completely subjected to the will of god what you will this is what i want to do is no longer the issue anymore it's now lord what do you want me to do i will i feel i want those things to know they no longer rule your life they no longer dictate what you do but many times some of the things that we do and then we try to find backing in the word of god it's because of what we will what we feel and what we want but that's not how it is at all a spiritually mature child of god is not ruled by what they what they feel or or their own will or what they want or what they desire their own aspirations their own ambitions no you're ruled by what the word of god says what what god is commanding you to do and when that is the case you will be distinguished uh from everyone else philippians 2 from verse 14 to 15 philippians 2 14 to 15 is really interesting there because it says let me read that to you it says do all things without murmurings and disputing that ye may be blameless and harmless the sons of god without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom you shine as lights in the world if we do this right if we grow up if we're growing up in christ then the word of god says that we will do all things we'll become we'll get to that point where we're doing all things without murmurings and disputings we will be blameless and harmless without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation and we will shine as lights will be distinguished everywhere we are in our family we'll be distinguished you know when when when believers um believers get upset and they're they they want to assert their rights and then they start to throw a tantrum and to act in all kinds of untoward ways and everyone is begging them and saying oh please why don't you just forgive him or her okay he he did something that was really really bad but you know just let them go just forgive them and you still feel you're still happy about that as a believer what is there to be happy about you should be ashamed of yourself because as a child of god that your you should be distinguished in your family everyone should know you that you are just that person who is above it all at work you should be that person who is again above it all in your you know in school in in wherever you represent in your neighborhood wherever you're represented you should be that guy or that lady who is just you're so far above it all it's difficult for them to comprehend you because you're supposed to be distinguished by your maturity the word of god says matthew chapter 5 verse 9 says blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of god those who make peace those who go out of their way who give up their rights to make sure that there is peace they will be called the sons of god they will be recognized they will stand out they will be distinguished as sons of god it's it's amazing but i do not think that many believers i don't think many of us even know that matthew 5 exists if you read matthew 5 it is it is about the farthest thing away from some of the popular christianity that we know today it's sad but it's true it's very basic but it what it's what it takes to be a mature believer to reflect that maturity that god wants for us now i know i've taken a bit of a harsher turn today but please let's not be put off by that like i said there sometimes truth has positive and negative just like you know positive and negative charges need each other for there to be electricity and if we just deal in all this sweet and positive and we don't deal in some of the stuff that we might not like to hear then we don't have the whole truth this is the whole truth the whole truth is that god is disappointed by a child of his who fails to grow who refuses to grow year in year out and sometimes even rather than growing and staying stagnant they are there's regression they're coming down getting you know more and more childish god is not pleased with that god is is both disappointed and embarrassed by it because spiritual maturity results results in better representation and spiritual maturity distinguishes you as a believer distinguishes you positively so that's number eight number nine spiritual maturity positions you for greater responsibility the truth is like we shared earlier on that you cannot give responsibility to a child and expect that the child will handle it well i mean it's just you what do you expect a child to do with that degree of responsibility if you bring your child to your bo to your board meeting so you own a really large and successful company you bring that child there just so that they can see what's going on and maybe play around a little bit you know that they cannot be responsible for anything for making any major decisions you know that because that's a child you're dealing with but as the child begins to mature you can hand them more and more responsibility the word of god says in book of acts chapter 13 from verse 1 to 4 there's a story that that begins to culminate in acts 13 1-4 and it's the story of barnabas and paul the apostle who was previously known as saul of tarsus if you think about it prior to acts chapter 13 um paul was never called an apostle he wasn't referred to as an apostle in fact in acts 13 and i'll read it to you it says in acts 13 from verse 1. acts 13 verse 1 says now there were in the church that was at antioch certain prophets and teachers as barnabas and simeon that was called niger and lucius of cyrene and manean which had been brought up with herod etc and saul look what he says there he says saul was one of the teachers and prophets he wasn't referred to as an apostle here and as they ministered to the lord and fasted the holy ghost said separate me barnabas and soul for the work where and to have called them when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away so they been sent forth by the holy ghost departed unto seleucia and from thence they sailed to cyprus it was from this point on that paul the apostle began to be referred to as an apostle so god began to trust paul with more responsibility from this point on this didn't happen until years had passed in his life in his work with god so there was there was that season when god was growing him up to this assignment and then he crossed over into that season where god enabled him to start walking and operating in that assignment that he had for him god begins to trust you with moral as you begin to mature there are certain things that god cannot trust you with right now because you're not mature enough to handle them in fact when jesus was speaking to his disciples he said there's so much i have to say to you but you're not able to bear them yet so but but when the holy spirit comes he will help you along and he will be able to explain those things to you because by then you'll be mature enough to handle those things so it's important for us to understand that there is so much responsibility god wants to place in our hands there's so much that god wants to do through us but he's unable to do through us because of our lack of maturity because we can't handle those things i remember years ago as i began to understand what it means to be a watchman and some of the things that the lord will reveal to me and call on me to pray about those things but it just seemed to happen suddenly and it wasn't as a result of a special gift of the spirit that i was now manifesting even though i thank god for all the gifts of the spirit that i have or that i have manifested or have walked in but at this time it was more from a place of intimacy where god would bring review things to me and say i want you to pray concerning this i want you to be interested about this this is about to come to pass pray such and such a way but then this was completely new to me i in fact didn't even realize that god could operate through a person in that way and of course i'm nowhere near where i want to be in my work with god i'm nowhere near where god expects me to be i have a long long way to go but that was an experience that helped me to understand that as you grow in your work with god more responsibility is placed on you the word of god says to whom so if if you are faithful with little then you will be faithful in much but if you are unfaithful with little then you will be unfaithful with much and who will commit to you true riches if you are unfaithful with little so as you grow and as you mature god opens up and gives you greater responsibility and enables you to perform in that responsibility that you might not have in your immaturity and then finally spiritual maturity positions you for power with god now it's different it's a different thing to be anointed by god uh for a certain assignment for or for a certain purpose as opposed to having power with god and let me explain what the difference is if my youngest daughter um is you know she she goes out at night she says she wants to go for a walk and i go with her and god forbid where we're harassed by say a dog because i'm standing right there i'll jump right in and probably protect her successfully but if a full-grown child of mine says we're going for a walk and we're going we start going for the walk and then god forbid again we're harassed or attacked by a dog or by a rabid raccoon or something i might actually not be so hasty to jump in and help i might just let them handle it because they're big enough to handle it now they're strong enough to handle it now and i just let them handle things in fact they might say dad don't worry i've got this and sometimes that's what god wants us to work up to having power with god that's power that that has been invested in us us using that power and manifesting that power another thing that you know having power with god would look like is sometimes god will reveal things to you not necessarily because he wants you to do anything about it but just because you're mature enough to have those conversations with god just because you're mature enough to weigh in on those conversations with god remember in genesis chapter 18 when the lord visited abraham and said look i will not do anything without revealing it to abraham because i know him that he will teach his children according to my ways and god had this whole conversation with abraham about what he was about to do um in sodom and gomorrah there are certain times when the lord will reveal certain things to you as you grow in your walk with god and then you are already getting ready to intercede and say well lord how do you want to intercede about this or what do you want me to do about this and lord says don't worry about it don't do anything i'm i'm not intending for you to do anything or have any impact on this matter i just want you to know this is going to come to pass and there is absolutely nothing that can be done to avoid it i just want to let you know because you're my son or you're my daughter and that's having power with god psalm 25 14 psalm 25 14 the bible says there that the secret of the lord is with them that fear him and he will show them his covenant the truth is that only the mature are wise enough to walk in the fear of god the fear of god isn't something that that that comes easy it comes with experience it comes with experience with god and it comes with revelation as well i pray that the holy spirit will open our eyes on our understanding to understand the things that he's teaching us in the name of jesus so we've talked about four things today uh four things that inspire us to desire growth one being that spiritual majority results in better results in better representation it enables you to represent god better because the more mature you are in your character the more your character will resemble that of christ and you can you can represent god pretty much in any sphere spiritual maturity number two distinguishes the mature it causes you to stand out it makes you noticeable it makes you a light in the midst of darkness we said the the the fourth one that spiritual majority positions you for greater responsibility because you will naturally give more responsibility to a mature person than you would to a child and then finally spiritual maturity positions you for power with god because god does not give responsibility without enablement okay so we've talked about 10 things that inspire us to desire growth the need for growth and we talked about 10 things for with regards to that and we said number one that we need to grow because spiritual maturity impacts all three components of our being we said number twos we need to grow because uh stagnancy or retrogression signals or indicates illness or death we said number three we grow because spiritual immaturity limits our access to god's treasures and his promises we said number four spiritual majority render spiritual immaturity renders you vulnerable number five spiritual immaturity renders you a hazard number six spiritual immaturity renders you a liability number seven spiritual maturity results in better representation number eight spiritual maturity distinguishes the mature number nine spiritual maturity positions you for greater responsibility and number 10 spiritual maturity positions you for power with god if you have been listening and you want to take your relationship with god to the next level say for example you don't have one or you had a relationship with god and you sort of went your own way and did your own thing you backslid and you would like to come back and be restored the father's arms are open and willing to receive you if you have found that your life has been bereft of growth for years now your spiritual life and you want to change that that's it that is living in a backslidden state you can call on the lord this evening i mean this morning and he will restore you he will cause you to start to grow he will quicken your your spirit he'll quicken your your relationship with him and you will begin to experience growth again so bow your head wherever you are and say this prayer after me if you want to make that decision to follow jesus i want you to say after me wherever you are say father i come in the name of your son jesus christ i believe that jesus is who he says he is that he died on the cross for me and through his sacrifice my sins can be forgiven father i submit myself to you please make me your child please forgive my sins and if you are backslidder say father please restore me from my backsliding say in the name of jesus i ask that you will give me a brand new life a brand new beginning and a brand new identity thank you father in jesus name i pray now i'll pray for you father i thank you for this child of yours who has come i ask father that you will answer their prayer and you will receive them even as you promised that everyone who comes to you you will not cast them away lord i ask my father that you give them grace never to turn back from following you and that you will use them mightily in your kingdom thank you father i give you praise in jesus name we pray amen if you have made this decision to follow the lord jesus christ please feel free to reach out to us at hello at new songva.org that's hello at newssongva.org we would love to disciple you or guide you along in the way if you need any help or any resources we'll be happy to provide them for you god bless you everyone and have a wonderful week see you next week